


A Shot In The Dark

by dragonofdispair



Series: Unrelated Prompt Responses [63]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 11:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13810686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: Short, oneshot: Megatron thinks the path to change is rejecting everything he'd been before; Drift knows better.





	A Shot In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rizobact](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/gifts).



> Unbeta'd
> 
> Just a short drabble. Riz is finally making me read the MTMTE comics and I decided to take a few headcanons out for walkies. Specifically my personal headcanon that Drift hasn't actually changed a ton from when he was Deadlock.
> 
> Takes place in some undefined AU where for some reason Drift is still on the LL when Megatron is made co-captain.

Deadlo— _Drift_ had avoided him since he’d come on board. Megatron figured he deserved that and didn’t push. The _old_ Megatron would have pushed, and he was determined that wasn’t him anymore so he let it be, even though seeing Drift only during command meetings made him edgy and paranoid. Drift _bounced_ through the halls, but Megatron knew that for the affectation it was, and the continued silence from that quarter left him straining to hear Deadlock’s silent footsteps behind him, ready to strike.

Intellectually, he knew Drift was probably experiencing the same thing, waiting for the cycle he turned a corner in a hall and found himself face-to-barrel of a canon. Intellectually he knew this. It didn’t make Megatron less tense and waiting for the surprise blaster shot that would cripple him in his weakened state.

To Megatron, Drift’s presence on the _Lost Light_ was like that of a ghost. Laced with menace and barely there, but undeniable. Drift let himself fade into the background of command meetings, which were more exercises in being ignored by Rodimus and Ultra Magnus (and sometimes Ratchet) as they argued about what they should be doing until to keep his vow of nonviolence, Megatron desperately called a recess.

But Megatron was an orator, who’d swayed millions to his cause. A twisted, perverse Cause that had caused the suffering of untold numbers of sparks, but surely he could convince two (or three) reluctant officers to see things his way! He just needed a plan.

So after a couple of breems, once the headache was manageable, Megatron would walk back into the meeting. Drift, who Megatron knew he couldn’t convince, but who also didn’t seem to have much official sway over anyone but Rodimus, was almost always there, watching quietly. The meeting would resume.

And things resolved so quickly, Megatron’s head would be left spinning. Rodimus would make his decision, Megatron would object; he’d make logical, _rational_ arguments defending his course of action, expecting Ultra Magnus to see _sense,_ but the ship’s second would always side with Rodimus. Ratchet, if he was there, would agree with the course of action, and laugh openly while Megatron’s oratory plans crumbled in the face of the enemy.

He only had to catch Drift talking to Ultra Magnus, then Rodimus, once during one of those recesses to realize what was going on, but it didn’t make it any more frustrating. Drift’s optics, whenever Megatron saw them, were always serene and judging.

As much as Megatron dreaded a confrontation, he couldn’t keep doing this. Co-captain of this ship wasn’t so much a command post as a laughingstock (Ratchet mostly being the one laughing). He’d thought Rodimus too impulsive and Ultra Magnus ineffective as leaders, and Ratchet utterly uninterested in anything outside his little medibay kingdom; it should have been easy to come in and put this ship to rights, to stop this wandering around at the whim of a child and actually accomplish their _mission._ He had not expected Drift to be… to be _cockblocking_ him like this! Something had to give.

Megatron hadn’t expected it to be Drift.

If anything, he’d imagined _himself_ being the one to snap, frustration pulling the thin veneer of reformation off like the yank of a first aid patch off a wound.

For want of something actually useful to do, Megatron put his large frame to work, lifting and organizing crates in the ship’s supply hold. It was dark and nasty, _lonely_ work that reminded Megatron of the mines but Megatron refused to let resentment take root. It wasn’t _dangerous_ like the mines had been, he wasn’t _captive_ here in this room. If his systems pinged him constantly for more power, it was nothing more than he deserved. This was a _punishment,_ not life in effective enslavement.

“Bang, you’re dead,” Deadlock’s voice drifted out of the darkness and Megatron whirled, systems trying to charge a weapon he no longer had.

Megatron stomped on the impulse as soon as he realized where it was going. He’d put violence _behind_ him. Whatever retribution Dea— _Drift_ had planned, Megatron would endure it. Drift wouldn’t _kill_ him… probably.

Blue optics glowed from the darkness, and orienting on them let Megatron pick out the rest of the mech’s form. He was perched on a pile of crates — a sniper’s position — but had no weapons Megatron could see, besides his swords sheathed at his side. Certainly not the gun his words threatened, that Deadlock would have once used.

“Please don’t do that, Drift,” Megatron said as soon as he had his systems under control.

“Yeah? Why not?” Drift launched himself from the top of the crates and landed on the floor with familiar grace. “You think you’re dangerous or somethin’?”

Megatron shook his head, trying to free himself from the sudden dissonance. The white paint and swords, the frame and optics, all screamed “Autobot!” but the mannerisms and sudden reversion to his familiar Dead End speech patterns made it clear Megatron was talking to Deadlock — a version of Deadlock Megatron had never seen before, who wasn’t his subordinate (whatever the _Lost Light’s_ official command structure said).

“I am dangerous,” Megatron knew better than to plead; it would only encourage Deadlock to go in for the kill. The mech had always hated listening to an enemy beg, and it disturbed Megatron that he suddenly didn’t know if the “kill” would be literal or not. “Even weakened as I am, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

Drift scoffed. “I don’ believe you.”

It wasn’t like that was an unfamiliar sentiment.

“I don't,” Megatron insisted. “I’ve changed.”

Drift scoffed again. “Change takes time, _Lord_ Megatron. Centuries, millennia, and even still there will always be a core of you that cannot change. Slave, tyrant, _Autobot _…__ Some things always stay the same.”

 _No._ Megatron couldn’t believe that. _Wouldn’t_ believe that. He’d renounced violence, he was _different!_ “And you,” he insisted, turning it around, clinging to that desperate hope. Megatron wasn’t the only defector, the only _killer_ in this room. Drift was a shining example that absolution _was_ possible. “You’re an Autobot. Third in command of the ship,” a promotion he’d earned from the captain, rather than was resented for as an interloper. “You changed.”

Drift gave him a pitying look. “Have I?”

And his optics flickered, from blue to red.

 _._  
.  
.

__end_ _


End file.
